okashii

1 Not Recommended

Food  1      Ambience  1      Service  1      Value  1     

I don't get what the fuss is about. People flock here for some hyped-up review of supposedly good laksa. Perhaps, this place used to have decent laksa but not anymore, it's an absolute disgrace. The laksa soup is laden with so much Msg additive me and my dining companions had to down bottles of water after the meal to get rid of our sudden onset of thirst. One person who is actually sensitive to Msg said they felt tingles down the spine and felt weak within a minute of drinking the soup.

Smell the soup. You can't even smell the coconut cream. Taste the soup. What do you taste? Laksa or yellow water laden with Msg? Guess why they don't provide table water, they know you're gonna be dried out by the MSG so they want you to fork out extra money for drinks.

Wake up Sydney. Smell the Msg.

May 20, 2012

3.5 Below Average

Food  3      Ambience  6      Service  3      Value  2     

Came here once last year for a quick dinner, the pad thai had noodles that were dry beyond belief, the entire dish was tasteless and bland. Could've gotten much better (and cheaper!) Thai meals down at Newtown. The desserts on display looked nice though and I thought I'd give them a go on the second chance to make up for the disappointing dinner.

Then a Spreets deal came up, promising dinner for 2 (quoted from the Spreets website): "Includes two bowls of the best prawn tom yum soup you’ll ever have.
A whole Tilapia fish cooked with curry or sweet chilli sauce. Hot seafood platter with salt and pepper calamari, fresh prawns, fish fillets, grilled mussels and soft shell crab! Plus rice for two and your choice of Any two Thai desserts from the cart! And a bottle of Woodhouse Estate 2011 Cabernet Merlot or 2010 Semillon Sauvignon Blanc to share!"

I was hoping this second chance could get this restaurant back in my good books but I was again disappointed.

The soup tasted like they've been made with instant noodle sachets (in fact, it tastes Exactly the same as the Mama brand tom yum instant noodles) with so much Msg my dining companion and I had to keep downing water to combat the resultant thirst. Best prawn tom yum soup? I could've made the same thing at home for 50 cents!

Seafood platter was alright, but the batter on the fish and calamari was much too salty. One of the soft shell crab pieces was really fishy.

As for the fish, the waitress didn't even bother asking us if we wanted curry or sweet chilli sauce, she just dumped it on our table, walked off and proceeded to pretend not noticing me waving at her to ask her about the choice of sauces. We gave up after getting no service from anyone at all, and dug into the fish. Now the presentation of this dish was quite nice with the fish upright and the sauce drizzled on top, but that was the only good part about it.

The sweet chilli sauce was literally the kind of sweet chilli sauce you'd get from the supermarkets. The fish itself was so fishy my dining companion gagged at the taste of it, even deep-frying the fish can't cover up the fishy-ness. We left the fish barely touched because it was so inedible.

Soon after the fish was plopped on our table another staff rudely dumped our 'dessert' in front of us. Now if I remember correctly the terms of the Spreets vouchers states that the meal included rice And diner's choice of dessert. None of that happened. Where's the rice for two? What happened to choosing dessert? All we got for dessert were two soap cakes that funnily enough, tasted like soap!

The attitude from this restaurant is to get through as many diners as possible, and to hell with what's advertised we'll just dump whatever's in the kitchen on the table.

Sure enough the decor of the place is nice, and the tuk tuk out front adds a nice vibe, but all else fails. Rude ignorant staff, terrible food, and disappointing value. I gave them two chances and they screwed up. Won't ever be coming back.

Apr 10, 2012

4 Below Average

Food  7      Ambience  4      Service  1      Value  4     

I thought it was just Criniti's that served over-priced Italian food, but I was wrong. At least with Criniti's the service is much better with more variety in food.

Starting with the ambience: the floors are sticky, the seats studded with crumbs from previous diners (or might just be the waiters wiping the crumbs onto the seats), the tables wobbly (my dining companions couldn't even use their knives in fear of the drink glasses tipping over, the water glasses had food stains on the rims! The ceiling decorations were nice however.

Service here is a complete joke. Someone spilled a drink near the entrance, and the spill wasn't cleaned up for a full half hour (I was sitting in plain sight of the entrance). I witnessed at least 3 customers nearly stacking it in the puddle.

Furthermore, my table was asked by no less than 4 different waiters whether we were done when we still had food on our plates. Like hello? Can't you see we're obviously still eating if there's food on the table and we're holding our forks and knives?! It doesn't take a genius to work out that if someone is holding a fork and has food in their plate, they are not done eating! And for Four Different Staff to ask us is beyond belief, do the wait staff even go through proper training?

Overall the food is alright, but, unfortunately, no where near enough to redeem this restaurant from my bad books. The wait staff simply don't care about diners, they just want tips despite the horrible service! Even the school kids behind the counter somewhere else have better manners than the waitstaff here.

Feb 24, 2012

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

8.8 Highly Recommended

Food  10      Ambience  5      Service  10      Value  10     

I've only found this place through numerous food blogs, and when Everyone raves about this place, you know it serves good food. Gumshara is a hidden gem of a shop amongst other dirty Asian stalls in a dingy, utterly disgusting food court in Chinatown. But ambience aside, you're here for the food and that's all that matters.

You know you're getting quality food when you see the chef personally taste test Every single bowl of ramen before it's passed to the counter onto the customer and they go through a heck of alot of disposable spoons! The soup here is a legend, pork bones boiled for a week and reduced down to a thick gluggy yet smooth as soup that slides down your throat like bliss. This is the ultimate cure for winter! If lucky, you can order the pork rib ramen, limited supply of 10 a day!

For tonkotsu ramen, there is absolutely No Where Else in Sydney, possibly all of Australia that does it better. This, is the mecca of tonkotsu ramen.

Sep 11, 2011

9 Highly Recommended

Food  9      Ambience  9      Service  10      Value  8     

A group of us came here for Sunday lunch after a walk in the nearby national park. At first I was a bit worried about the standard of the food in such a remote location, but was pleasantly surprised. The restaurant was pretty much empty except for a couple or two, so the service was great because the hostess wasn't running off her feet.

The food can be a bit pricey compared to other Thai restaurants closer to the city, but you do get your money's worth with awesome flavours and fresh ingredients. Usually I'm hesitant to order salmon when I eat out because of previous bad experiences, but here the salmon salad and poached salmon in tom yum was cooked to perfection, absolutely beautiful! There's a number of stand-out dishes (such as fig lamb, tamarind prawns and duck curry) apart from the usual Thai fare, all worth a try. And for dessert, the sticky rice is a must!

For the 9 of us we shared 4 starters/salads, 6 mains, rice, dessert and coffee, and the bill came to around $280 which was fine because we had a number of seafood and duck dishes. The ambience is quite nice here, neat, clean and comfortable. And as a previous review said "upmarket...without being formal in any way".

If I didn't live so far away I would make this my regular eat out place!

Sep 11, 2011

1 Not Recommended

Food  1      Ambience  1      Service  1      Value  1     

I don't get what the fuss is about. People flock here for some hyped-up review of supposedly good laksa. Perhaps, this place used to have decent laksa but not anymore, it's an absolute disgrace. The laksa soup is laden with so much Msg additive me and my dining companions had to down bottles of water after the meal to get rid of our sudden onset of thirst. One person who is actually sensitive to Msg said they felt tingles down the spine and felt weak within a minute of drinking the soup.

Smell the soup. You can't even smell the coconut cream. Taste the soup. What do you taste? Laksa or yellow water laden with Msg? Guess why they don't provide table water, they know you're gonna be dried out by the MSG so they want you to fork out extra money for drinks.

Wake up Sydney. Smell the Msg.

May 20, 2012

3.5 Below Average

Food  3      Ambience  6      Service  3      Value  2     

Came here once last year for a quick dinner, the pad thai had noodles that were dry beyond belief, the entire dish was tasteless and bland. Could've gotten much better (and cheaper!) Thai meals down at Newtown. The desserts on display looked nice though and I thought I'd give them a go on the second chance to make up for the disappointing dinner.

Then a Spreets deal came up, promising dinner for 2 (quoted from the Spreets website): "Includes two bowls of the best prawn tom yum soup you’ll ever have.
A whole Tilapia fish cooked with curry or sweet chilli sauce. Hot seafood platter with salt and pepper calamari, fresh prawns, fish fillets, grilled mussels and soft shell crab! Plus rice for two and your choice of Any two Thai desserts from the cart! And a bottle of Woodhouse Estate 2011 Cabernet Merlot or 2010 Semillon Sauvignon Blanc to share!"

I was hoping this second chance could get this restaurant back in my good books but I was again disappointed.

The soup tasted like they've been made with instant noodle sachets (in fact, it tastes Exactly the same as the Mama brand tom yum instant noodles) with so much Msg my dining companion and I had to keep downing water to combat the resultant thirst. Best prawn tom yum soup? I could've made the same thing at home for 50 cents!

Seafood platter was alright, but the batter on the fish and calamari was much too salty. One of the soft shell crab pieces was really fishy.

As for the fish, the waitress didn't even bother asking us if we wanted curry or sweet chilli sauce, she just dumped it on our table, walked off and proceeded to pretend not noticing me waving at her to ask her about the choice of sauces. We gave up after getting no service from anyone at all, and dug into the fish. Now the presentation of this dish was quite nice with the fish upright and the sauce drizzled on top, but that was the only good part about it.

The sweet chilli sauce was literally the kind of sweet chilli sauce you'd get from the supermarkets. The fish itself was so fishy my dining companion gagged at the taste of it, even deep-frying the fish can't cover up the fishy-ness. We left the fish barely touched because it was so inedible.

Soon after the fish was plopped on our table another staff rudely dumped our 'dessert' in front of us. Now if I remember correctly the terms of the Spreets vouchers states that the meal included rice And diner's choice of dessert. None of that happened. Where's the rice for two? What happened to choosing dessert? All we got for dessert were two soap cakes that funnily enough, tasted like soap!

The attitude from this restaurant is to get through as many diners as possible, and to hell with what's advertised we'll just dump whatever's in the kitchen on the table.

Sure enough the decor of the place is nice, and the tuk tuk out front adds a nice vibe, but all else fails. Rude ignorant staff, terrible food, and disappointing value. I gave them two chances and they screwed up. Won't ever be coming back.

Apr 10, 2012

4 Below Average

Food  7      Ambience  4      Service  1      Value  4     

I thought it was just Criniti's that served over-priced Italian food, but I was wrong. At least with Criniti's the service is much better with more variety in food.

Starting with the ambience: the floors are sticky, the seats studded with crumbs from previous diners (or might just be the waiters wiping the crumbs onto the seats), the tables wobbly (my dining companions couldn't even use their knives in fear of the drink glasses tipping over, the water glasses had food stains on the rims! The ceiling decorations were nice however.

Service here is a complete joke. Someone spilled a drink near the entrance, and the spill wasn't cleaned up for a full half hour (I was sitting in plain sight of the entrance). I witnessed at least 3 customers nearly stacking it in the puddle.

Furthermore, my table was asked by no less than 4 different waiters whether we were done when we still had food on our plates. Like hello? Can't you see we're obviously still eating if there's food on the table and we're holding our forks and knives?! It doesn't take a genius to work out that if someone is holding a fork and has food in their plate, they are not done eating! And for Four Different Staff to ask us is beyond belief, do the wait staff even go through proper training?

Overall the food is alright, but, unfortunately, no where near enough to redeem this restaurant from my bad books. The wait staff simply don't care about diners, they just want tips despite the horrible service! Even the school kids behind the counter somewhere else have better manners than the waitstaff here.

Feb 24, 2012

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

8.8 Highly Recommended

Food  10      Ambience  5      Service  10      Value  10     

I've only found this place through numerous food blogs, and when Everyone raves about this place, you know it serves good food. Gumshara is a hidden gem of a shop amongst other dirty Asian stalls in a dingy, utterly disgusting food court in Chinatown. But ambience aside, you're here for the food and that's all that matters.

You know you're getting quality food when you see the chef personally taste test Every single bowl of ramen before it's passed to the counter onto the customer and they go through a heck of alot of disposable spoons! The soup here is a legend, pork bones boiled for a week and reduced down to a thick gluggy yet smooth as soup that slides down your throat like bliss. This is the ultimate cure for winter! If lucky, you can order the pork rib ramen, limited supply of 10 a day!

For tonkotsu ramen, there is absolutely No Where Else in Sydney, possibly all of Australia that does it better. This, is the mecca of tonkotsu ramen.

Sep 11, 2011

9 Highly Recommended

Food  9      Ambience  9      Service  10      Value  8     

A group of us came here for Sunday lunch after a walk in the nearby national park. At first I was a bit worried about the standard of the food in such a remote location, but was pleasantly surprised. The restaurant was pretty much empty except for a couple or two, so the service was great because the hostess wasn't running off her feet.

The food can be a bit pricey compared to other Thai restaurants closer to the city, but you do get your money's worth with awesome flavours and fresh ingredients. Usually I'm hesitant to order salmon when I eat out because of previous bad experiences, but here the salmon salad and poached salmon in tom yum was cooked to perfection, absolutely beautiful! There's a number of stand-out dishes (such as fig lamb, tamarind prawns and duck curry) apart from the usual Thai fare, all worth a try. And for dessert, the sticky rice is a must!

For the 9 of us we shared 4 starters/salads, 6 mains, rice, dessert and coffee, and the bill came to around $280 which was fine because we had a number of seafood and duck dishes. The ambience is quite nice here, neat, clean and comfortable. And as a previous review said "upmarket...without being formal in any way".

If I didn't live so far away I would make this my regular eat out place!

Sep 11, 2011

4 Below Average

Food  4      Ambience  4      Service  5      Value  3     

Came here twice within the past month or so, and my conclusion is that it's not worth the trek over to crows nest, nor the wait to get a table. Perhaps back in it's heydays Ryo's had excellent ramen, but these days the quality has gone downhill. I was curious to see what all the hype was about, and to be honest, it's nothing to write home about.

First Time I came here I had the basic tonkotsu ramen, expecting it to be a rich soup somewhat similar to Gumshara in Haymarket. But what I got was some watery broth that lacked the flavour of pork bones and marrow. The soft boiled egg and noodles were the only saving grace.

Then I returned yet again to give Ryo's a second chance, and it wasn't any better. This time I went for a negi miso ramen, and the soup was so salty and oily that when I got home afterwards I drank nearly a litre of water because I got so thirsty from it. The amount of oil I scooped off the top of the soup was unbelievable - one full sauce dish and there's still quite alot floating in the bowl. The supposedly soft boiled eggs were a let down, as 80% of the yolk was already hard. At least the noodles were still up to scratch.

It's a bit of a gamble at Ryo's, as you never know if you're going to get watery tasteless soup or soup so salty it'll leave you severely dehydrated. Depends on the chef's mood I guess. You can tell people are voting with their feet - the lines at Ryo's used to be 40 minutes long but now you'd be lucky to spot any more than 5 people waiting outside. With no quality control in the food they serve, why would anyone bother returning?

Sep 04, 2011

8.3 Highly Recommended

Food  8      Ambience  9      Service  9      Value  7     

I feel sorry for the chef who's trying to dish out everything from the tiny hole-in-the-wall kitchen! Having said that, the quality of the food that comes out of that tiny cupboard of a kitchen is quite good. Price for lunch is a tad expensive ($16 for a chicken caesar salad) although it could be due to the location and shop rent. My family lunched hoping to have some Spanish food but the only things closest to Spanish/Mediterranean on the menu were the salad, meatballs, and Portuguese tart. Guess that paella I was hoping for will have to wait until next time when I go for dinner.

The atmosphere is warm and cosy in this little cafe, with live music playing in the corner. The staff are friendly and attentive, contrary to other reviews out there.
This place is not meant for people in a hurry, the poor chef is already doing his best in that tiny little cubicle of a kitchen! Would be good if they expanded the premises and got a decent-sized kitchen so that the chef can work his magic. I will definitely be back to try out the dinner menu!

Sep 05, 2010

9 Highly Recommended

Food  9      Ambience  10      Service  9      Value  8     

Was looking for a good romantic place for a special dinner with boyfriend, saw reviews on eatability and had a lovely time there. Went for dinner on wednesday, had a bit of difficulty finding the place since we weren't familiar with the area and it was really dark in the industrial area. However, we did manage to find the restaurant tucked in the corner of the building. To our surprise, we were the only diners!

The waiter was very welcoming, attentive without being obtrusive. We got the table in the corner with the best view overlooking the fountain (would've been more nice if there were decorative lights around the fountain), and pretty much got the whole restaurant to ourselves!

For the atmosphere, service and food, $49 is unbeatable in value. The only thing is that its a tad far away from the busy town centres. I really liked the risotto of the day (spinach and roasted duck), perhaps, I should've had it for mains, which was the veal with polenta cake. I've only had polenta on one other occasion, but I must say this one was fabulous!

The only downside was that the food took quite a while to arrive, but we just chatted on and let our stomachs rest before the next course. The food is really good quality and you can taste it. My boyfriend absolutely loved the steamed mussels in white wine, in fact he's still raving about it!

Overall, a romantic and intimate night out. Rare to have the whole restaurant to ourselves (apart from the other couple who came in later on). Lovely food, great service. Will visit again for sure when in the area.

May 22, 2009

8.5 Highly Recommended

Food  8      Ambience  7      Service  9      Value  10     

A favourite with the local uni/tafe students, this place is always full for lunch. The pho (beef noodle soup) is light and fragrant, and always filling. At $7.60 for small and $8.80 for large bowl the size of a small washing basin, its a damn good deal in my opinion!

This place is bright, airy and clean unlike other restaurants in the area. There is always a steady flow of lunch takeaways. Besides the main menu, there are also other mains advertised on the wall except some of them are written in chinese.
Easily the best pho in lidcombe.

May 12, 2009

0 of 3 people found the following review helpful

1.8 Not Recommended

Food  2      Ambience  3      Service  1      Value  1     

Me and my mates had cravings for Japanese food so decided to come here. On my previous visit I wasn't impressed at all with Shinoya and them serving instant noodles as ramen. No respectable restaurant should serve instant noodles, its an insult to the customer, why pay $10 for instant noodles when you can cook it yourself at home for $3?

Prejudices aside, I went with my friends to see if this time Shinoya will be up to scratch. The waitress kept on forgetting what was ordered so one of my friends ended up getting her meal when everyone was just about finished with theirs. We kept on asking her what happened to the order, and all her replies were "sorry I bring to you soon". Soon as in when everyone else is finished? Not a good impression.

Despite this, we all went back the next week, hoping again that things would improve. Some of us ordered sashimi with their set meal, and all found that it tasted extremely fishy. Sashimi should never taste slimy and fishy as it indicates that it is not fresh and is past its use-by date. Those who had sushi on the side with their set meals had to wait half an hour because the waitress had again forgotten about what we had ordered.

For me, I've given the staff at Shinoya 3 chances. All were mediocre, the sushi and sashimi is well below par, the waitress constantly forgets to bring the food. Anyone who has experienced Real Japanese cuisine made by proper kitchen staffs will know that this place is an absolute disgrace.

Apr 26, 2009